Bybit CEO Ben Zhou has confirmed that $1.07 billion—roughly 77% of the property stolen within the alternate’s latest $1.4 billion safety breach—can nonetheless be tracked.
In a March 4 replace, Zhou disclosed that hackers efficiently laundered $280 million, round 20% of the 499,000 ETH stolen.
In the meantime, investigators have managed to freeze $42 million, accounting for 3% of the compromised funds.
Zhou said that 11 unbiased bounty hunters have been rewarded $2.1 million for serving to to freeze stolen property. Among the many high contributors have been Mantle, Paraswap, and blockchain investigator ZachXBT.
THORChain’s function
Zhou revealed that the attackers transformed a lot of the stolen ETH into Bitcoin (BTC) by means of THORChain, a decentralized platform designed for cross-chain asset swaps.
He said that the hackers funneled round 83% of the stolen property—equal to 417,348 ETH price roughly $1 billion—into BTC. They then dispersed these funds throughout 6,954 wallets, with a mean stability of 1.71 BTC per pockets.
This exercise considerably boosted THORChain’s transaction quantity within the final two weeks to greater than $5.8 billion following the Bybit breach. Blockchain analyst EmberCN additionally reported that the platform earned roughly $5.5 million in charges from these transactions.
Blockchain safety researcher Taylor Monahan criticized THORChain, claiming its construction permits felony actions underneath the guise of decentralization. She argued that its system operates in an remoted ecosystem that advantages insiders and facilitates cash laundering.
Monahan mentioned:
“[THORChain] exists in its personal little bubble that’s largely exhausting criminals and the insiders who’ve discovered methods to revenue from mentioned felony flows instantly or not directly.”
Nevertheless, Zhou said that the funds moved by means of the platform can nonetheless be traced. In accordance with him, it will likely be vital to freeze the funds within the coming weeks earlier than hackers try and money out by means of centralized exchanges, over-the-counter (OTC) desks, and peer-to-peer (P2P) networks.
ExCH and OKX involvement
In the meantime, Zhou additionally reported that the stolen property have been moved by means of different platforms, together with ExCH and OKX Web3 Proxy.
Zhou disclosed that 40,233 ETH—price roughly $100 million—moved by means of OKX’s Web3 proxy. Of this quantity, 16,680 ETH stays traceable, whereas 23,553 ETH ($65 million) requires extra info from OKX to trace.
In the meantime, 79,655 ETH—round 16% of the full stolen—was funneled by means of ExCH, an alternate that had beforehand denied facilitating illicit transactions for the Bybit hacker.
In a Feb. 23 assertion, ExCH refuted claims that it had laundered funds for North Korea-linked entities however confirmed that:
“[An] insignificant portion of funds from the ByBit hack ultimately entered our handle 0xf1da173228fcf015f43f3ea15abbb51f0d8f1123, which was an remoted case and the one half processed by our alternate, charges from which we will probably be donated for the general public good.”
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